


And what'll you do now, my darling young one?

by ireallydidthistomyself



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 14, Angst with a Happy Ending, Castiel is Jack Kline's Parent, Coming of Age, Dean Winchester is Jack Kline's Parent, Jack Kline and Claire Novak are Siblings, M/M, Minor Apocalypseverse Bobby Singer/Mary Winchester, Minor Kaia Nieves/Claire Novak, Minor Rowena MacLeod/Sam Winchester, background jack kline/omc, to be like VERY clear jack is like a grown up by the time that happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:22:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28672197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ireallydidthistomyself/pseuds/ireallydidthistomyself
Summary: When Dean goes through with his unthinkable plan, Cas is left to raise Jack alone as best he can. As he grows up, Jack begins to ask questions Cas isn't ready to answer.
Relationships: Castiel & Jack Kline, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Jack Kline & Claire Novak
Comments: 18
Kudos: 171





	And what'll you do now, my darling young one?

**Author's Note:**

> I would say this is set right after "Damaged Goods" if Mary and Sam hadn't figured out what was going on. So yes, Jack is still human despite having the soul magic from Lily Sunder. I don't super deal with the empty deal here because to be honest the show handled it far better than I ever could.  
> title from "a hard rain's a gonna fall" by bob dylan  
> partial concept credit to maj (@casgirl on tumblr) via texts

_The winds were racing around him and the smell of salt was in his nose. Everything was in order, he knew that. He’d mailed the letters, and said all his goodbyes. Well, in theory he had. He’d seen everyone he needed to see, his mother, knowing and discriminating, Donna, warm and confused, Jody, who had been firm and too busy feeding him to see the look in his eye, Bobby, who he knew was ultimately a pale replacement but he needed to see nonetheless, Charlie same thing, though he let himself be introduced to her new girlfriend with a deeper ache in his heart than he fully understood, Claire he had done one last hunt with and she had certainly suspected something was up but knew better than to ask. He’d even paid a quick call on Rowena for old time’s sake and held over loyalty to Crowley. Only his mother, he knew, had really understood it was a goodbye. That was alright, he was too afraid already, if he had one more reason to not do this he was sure he’d freeze._

_He hadn’t said goodbye, even in pretense, to the people who mattered most. He’d left the bunker with nothing but a slap to Sam’s back, a ruffle to Jack's hair, and a brush to Cas’s shoulder. If he’d done more, been reminded of how he loved them so, he knew for certain he couldn’t do it. It was best like this, he thought. They’d get their letters and understand. And they’d hate him, he assumed, probably for forever. That was alright, he accepted, it was like his dad always said, he wasn’t there to be liked._

_He looked down at the metal before him. He could do this, he had to do this. He knew what Michael would do if he got out, if he even hesitated long enough for him to take back control. He could see it in his mind’s eye, had seen it every night since Michael had returned to his body. Sam, Jack, Cas, everyone he loved, ruined and bloodied at his own hands, begging for mercy he was incapable of giving. Michael had shown him every creative version of it, every possible torture he could dream up for them. In those final days he couldn’t even look at Jack without seeing him broken at his feet. And yes, this was good, he thought, this was the thought to latch onto, this was the resolve he needed. He couldn’t let that happen, he told himself, fuck the universe, but he couldn’t abandon them to that fate. He used that resolve to climb into the box._

_Then his phone rang. He didn’t want to pick up, it was idiotic to pick up. But he saw the caller ID and thought he was allowed this last little temptation._

_“Cas…” he said._

_“Dean, we’re on our way,” Cas told him, rushed and breathless and oh it was good to hear his voice. “Just stay where you are.”_

_“I can’t do that,” Dean numbly replied._

_“Yes you- listen, Mary and Claire both called us about your visits and then, well your letters came too early because we know all about your insane plan. And Sam and Mary and I are gonna be there so soon, so just stop being so incredibly stupid and calm down and we can figure this out,” Cas said and Dean could hear him tripping over his words and begging and a part of him thought it would be best to just hang up._

_“Cas, listen, you’re not gonna get here in time. You’re just not. I’m already offshore,” Dean told him and he heard Cas emit a little gasp on the other side of the line. “So, do you wanna keep trying to convince me to not do something I’ve already halfway done or do you want to get a chance to say goodbye?”_

_“Dean,” Cas said, anguished and bitter and grasping at straws, “you can’t want this. It’s deranged and it’s awful and no one deserves it, certainly not you. Let me help you, please.”_

_“It’s the only way.”_

_“We’ve always found another-”_

_“I keep seeing it,” Dean told him. It hurt to even put it into words. “Every night Michael shows me what he’s gonna do. To you and Jack and Sam. You don’t- I can’t let that happen. Come on man, you can’t let me do that. I know what you said, that you’d “watch me murder the world” or whatever, but would you watch me murder our kid?”_

_Cas was silent on the other end of the line. Dean thought he could hear him crying and wished he could be there and brush away the tears but he was pretty sure even if he had been there he wouldn’t be able to do that, his hands were shaking so damn bad._

_“I know you understand, I know you do, and look, you’ll still be able to hear me praying right? So I’ll be with you, I won’t be gone, not really,” Dean said, unsure who he was trying to calm. “And listen, one day, if his grace grows back maybe he’ll be able to- but until then, you gotta promise me something.”_

_“What?” Cas rasped, his voice tear choked. “What else do you need me to give you?”_

_“You can’t tell him,” Dean demanded. “Not until he’s old enough, not until his grace grows back. There’s no need and I don’t want him growing up like that, you hear? I want more for him. Just tell him- tell him I died on a hunt. Promise me.”_

_“I promise. Of course.”_

_“Good,” Dean told him. “That’s good,” and he trailed off for a moment, listening to the sound of the wind and his own frantic breaths and Cas’s quiet muffled crying on the other side of the line. “Well, I think I gotta go now.”_

_“Please don’t!” Cas shouted desperately, one final grasp for him. “Dean, you need to know-”_

_“Cas, not now-”_

_“You need to know, I won’t let you do this not knowing.”_

_“Cas, buddy, I know what you’re gonna say-”_

_“Then for me, Dean. I’ve given you everything and now I’m about to lose you forever. I have a right to tell you that I love you.”_

_And there it was finally sitting out there between them, the ever present elephant in the room. Dean swallowed, letting it hang there for a minute. If he had to take one moment to stretch out forever and take with him into eternity, Cas saying those words was a pretty good one._

_“I love you too,” He said, quiet, so quiet he didn’t know if Cas could even hear him. “Fuck, if I was there right now, I’d kiss you, I would.”_

_“Then wait a minute more and you can,” Cas pleaded and Dean knew it was time to go and his courage had run out._

_“I gotta go now, Cas, I’m so sorry,” Dean said abruptly, cutting off Cas’s frantic begging._

_“Dean-”_

_He hung up the phone then, unable to hear a moment more. To avoid any more temptation, he tossed his phone into the sea in front of him. He regretted it immediately, wanting to look at the photos he’d saved a few more times before it went dead. But better safe than sorry. Their faces were burned behind his eyes and that would be enough. He knew what he was doing this for._

_He closed the lid._

He was sitting at the library table, watching _Cyberchase_ on his ipad (he wasn’t allowed to watch anything more mature without parental supervision and while he knew how to erase the history, he didn’t like to break rules) when they had come home. They hadn’t let him on hunts as much since Michael had reentered Dean on Christmas, an added level of fear for him with such a threat nearby and his own lack of powers. It made him angry, screwing up his face and wanting to punch things just to prove he was still useful. Cas had yelled at him about it once, _Jack! We almost lost you! And you’ll just throw that all away?_ And that had rendered Jack silent. Cas had apologized for raising his voice, something he never did, and Jack had agreed to stop complaining, but when he had left there was still some bitterness between them, their goodbye hug more perfunctory than anything. Still, he had missed him as soon as he was gone.

Jack scanned their faces as they stood around the table, Sam, looking miles away, Mary, every muscle in her body clenched, Cas, something totally shattered in his eyes, and a blonde girl Jack had never met, one arm on Cas’s as if she was all that was holding him up. He took off his head phones and looked up at them. Something felt horribly wrong in the pit of his stomach. Before he could speak, the blonde girl stepped forward.

“Hey, Jack, I don’t think we ever met, I’m Claire,” she told him and he nodded and tried to smile but there wasn’t even an attempt at one on her face and he knew something was wrong. He’d dreamed about meeting her, Cas had told him so much about her, but this wasn’t how it was meant to go.

“Where’s Dean?” Jack asked and the words seemed to shake the faces of all four before him. The feeling in his stomach began to rise through his chest and throat and straight into his mouth. Looks were exchanged between them, as if everyone was gaging who was supposed to speak first. Finally, and with what seemed to be herculean effort, Cas stepped forward and kneeled before where Jack sat in his chair. He looked up at him into Jack’s face, blue eyes meeting each other and Jack knew. He shook his head.

“Jack…” Cas began but Jack shut his eyes tight. It wasn’t real, the obvious answer screaming in his head couldn’t be the truth.

“No. No!” He said, and Cas reached for his hand and held it tightly and Jack wished he wouldn’t because all it did was ground him in the moment.

“We tried as best we could-” Cas tried again but Jack suddenly pulled his hand from Cas’s and clamped them both down over his ears. If he didn’t hear it then it wasn’t real, right? Like the advice Dean would give him about hunts _if you can’t see them, they can’t see you, kid, so keep out of sight when the going gets tough_. Everything in him seemed to be slipping out of him suddenly, like he was being drained of his grace all over again.

“You’re lying!” Jack shouted but he quickly realized that only added validity to Cas’s words. By knowing what it was he was trying to say before he even said it meant that Jack was admitting it was even a possibility. And it wasn’t. It was impossible. Dean always came home, always came back, he always came to the rescue guns blazing. Cas told him that before he was even born. It couldn’t be true. It wasn’t fair.

“Oh, Jack,” Cas said quietly and Jack opened his eyes to take his father in again. He understood then, with a horrible rush of guilt, that all he was doing was plunging a sword into his own father’s side. With that, he burst into tears.

Cas reached to hold him and Jack let himself fall to the floor and crawl into his father’s arms like the small creature he never got to be.

They explained it to him later, as he sat numbly on the edge of his bed in his pajamas, Sam and Cas and Claire taking turns (Mary exhausted and in bed and unable to even speak in the face of the death of her son). The story they gave was hunt gone wrong, vamps still had the archangel grace Michael had infused them with, that there had been nothing left, nothing even to burn, and they said over and over and over again that it hadn’t made sense and they were so sorry and Cas was sitting beside him again and rubbing his back. None of it made sense, was all he thought, it felt like a puzzle with pieces missing.

“What happened to Michael?” Jack asked, and the three of them exchanged a quick look.

“He’s um he’s gone too, Jack,” Sam said, inhaling and shaking his head. “The archangel grace, we guess it was enough. It’s over.”

“It’s over?” Jack asked again. Sam nodded.

“It’s over,” Sam confirmed and some sort of weight went off Jack’s shoulder as the stones in his stomach grew heavier. He’d prayed for this since he was only a few months old. It felt like a slap to the face. He put his face into Cas’s shoulder then, and Cas put a hand around the back of his head.

“I think he should go to bed, now,” Cas said calmly and Sam and Claire shuffled out.

“We’re here if you need us,” Sam said as he left his room and Claire gave a murmur of assent. Jack didn’t look up. The door closed. He looked again at his father.

“Do you want dinner?” Cas asked. “I realize I haven’t thought to fix you something and you probably haven’t eaten since lunch. I think we have some soup in the freezer that I can heat up.”

“I’m not hungry,” Jack told him. “I just wanna sleep.”

“That’s a good plan,” Cas replied, patting his back. “Do you need me to stay until you fall asleep?”

“Could you?” Jack asked him. His father nodded.

“Of course.”

And Cas sat there, quietly at the end of his bed, as Jack pretended to not keep looking at him from the corner of his eye, illuminated in the green-yellow light of his night light. He was the last thing he saw before he fell asleep.

The apocalypse world hunters who had been regulars at the bunker seemed to be kept away from that point on, none of them needing the clutter of it all. Bobby and Charlie, however, seemed to always be around, squeezing his shoulder or asking him how he was. Mary was there more regularly too, sticking close to Sam, the two of them holding each other up. If Jack didn’t see Sam with Mary he was with Rowena, the two women seemingly sharing the burden of keeping him going. When Mary wasn’t with Sam, she was with Bobby. Something in both of these couplings seemed to be impossible for his father to look at. Jack didn’t have words for why but he understood it in his heart.

Jack didn’t know what kept Cas going. He seemed to always be around, taking care of Jack, taking care of Sam, taking care of whatever needed to be done. Whenever he had to leave Jack to attend to business, Claire was there. Claire, who he had never even met before, suddenly was around all of the time and exchanging silent conspiratorial glances with Cas whenever his well being was concerned.

She lay on the floor of his room with him one day, when Cas was out helping Sam with a hunt. Her head was in his lap as she let him braid her hair like something he saw on a youtube tutorial. She went willingly to those things, though he could tell instinctively she wouldn’t have under any circumstances. He loved her so dearly, and she was so like Dean it was like a little piece of his dad with him all the time. That didn’t hurt him, it made him feel safe, though he thought it maybe hurt Cas, when she smiled or laughed just like Dean used to.

“You know, I lost my dad, too,” Claire said, as Jack worked on a particularly complicated part of the fishtail.

“I know. Cas told me,” Jack told her numbly.

“I was older than you,” Claire admitted, “but in some ways it was similar, I guess…”

“Because an angel was possessing him,” Jack responded. “I know.”

“Sort of ironic,” Claire said with a hollow grin. Jack nodded.

“I wish I could’ve said goodbye,” Jack admitted. “I wish I’d been there. But I know, I mean, I’ve been to heaven. So I know I’ll see him again. And you’ll see your dad too. Cas says it won’t be for a very long time. But, one day, we’ll all be able to.”

Claire looked pained and he wasn’t sure why.

“You’re pulling my hair, kid,” Claire said. “Ease up.”

“Okay,” Jack replied. It was just what Dean would have said right then. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

He knew a lot of long late night conversations were taking place then, about where he was to go next. He would tiptoe around the bunker before being caught by Claire and dragged to bed and often overhear them. Over and over he heard Cas’s voice insisting that they were staying in the bunker.

“If you want to move out, Sam, if you want something else, fine, that’s your choice. But my son? He won’t be safe anywhere else on earth. I’m not moving an inch. I won’t let anything happen to him,” Cas said, firm and focused.

“So, you’ll...what? Just run this place yourself?” Sam asked. “You think it’s healthy to stay here?”

“Jack and Claire- they’re legacies. By all rights, this place will be theirs one day. The best I can do is groom them for that responsibility,” Cas replied.

Jack didn’t understand what the fighting exactly was about. He knew there was some enormous wedge between Sam and Cas since they’d returned home, something between them that meant they could barely stand to be in a room together. None of it was ever explained to him, except one day Sam and Rowena were moving into her apartment a few hours from Lebanon and Mary and Bobby were gonna be hunting on the road and he and Cas were staying put, Claire too, for the time being.

Life started to, strangely, become more normal then. Days were filled with reading lore and researching and training. There were hunts, though more so for Claire than for Cas and Jack. Cas didn’t want him to go hunting, didn’t want Claire to either but seemed more powerless to stop her. Cas was suddenly more concerned with his education than he’d ever been before.

“You’re practically human, Jack,” Cas had told him as he forced him to do problems in an algebra textbook while Claire was dealing with a vengeful spirit in Wichita. “Until your grace fully grows back, you should learn at least basic things. You should be able to live your life.”

“But, I don’t wanna be a regular human,” Jack had replied. “I wanna be a hunter. I wanna protect people, like Claire does. Like you do and like...like Dean did.”

Cas had shook his head at that, the strange quiet heaviness that often overcame him returned. He had stared at Jack for a long time like he was trying to make his features make sense. Then he had tightened his mouth.

“Well, hunters need to know basic math too. And even Dean,” Cas paused for a moment, it was always visibly painful for him to talk about him, though he was an often referenced subject. Jack always found Cas held onto him tighter whenever it came up. As if on cue, Cas reached a hand to his back to give him a gentle brush. “Dean had a GED. Education was important to him too.”

He looked up at his father, a million more questions on his lips, but then bent back over his book. Cas, for his part, quietly left the room, mumbling about needing to help Claire with something in the armory.

Jack tried his best to remember Dean. Before bed he would imagine the way Dean would say good night to him. When he got dressed he’d think “what would Dean say about this outfit” and would laugh in his head about the various loving insults towards it Dean might have made. Listening to music on his phone he’d try to remember Dean’s favorite bands, what songs he said were essential to being a person. He’d listen to Dean’s old cassette tapes too, though those were harder for him to figure out, and would sometimes wish there might be a secret message in them, like Dean had listened to them enough that maybe Jack could find his own voice amongst the guitar and the crooning.

He remembered Dean’s anger too, he had to admit. He remembered the way he was before Cas had come back, the sort of things he’d said to Jack. But that memory seemed to always be washed away by remembering Dean’s hand on the back of his neck and what he had said to him in his bedroom when they’d returned from apocalypse world, telling him that he was strong and that things would get better and that he’d look after him. That promise, Jack considered, had never been broken from that point on. Sometimes, when he felt really awful, he realized that this was a fulfillment of that promise.

But most of the time he remembered Dean clapping his back and telling him he’d done good or Dean taking him for a spin in the Impala. He missed the car, the smell of leather and sweat and the ever present endorphins of a hunt gone right. Sam had taken it when he’d left, one of his terms. Cas had nodded stiffly when that was decided and barely said a word for the rest of the day. Claire had quietly promised Cas she’d teach Jack to drive in her own car, but it hadn’t seemed to do much for him in that moment.

Whenever Jack truly missed him, deeply and in his bones, he would wrap himself up in Dean’s robe and curl up somewhere. The memory of Dean putting it on him, after he got back from heaven, was one of his absolute favorites. He’d never felt so safe, not in his whole life. The only memory rivaling it had been the drive back from the hospital a few days earlier, wrapped up in Cas’s trench coat, when he had fallen asleep in the back of the Impala. Even with the fear surrounding his illness looming over him, in that moment, lulled by the sounds of his fathers’ voices, he’d been so sure everything would be alright.

Cas had not succeeded in hiding his welling tears when he had first seen Jack wrapped up in the robe so he made sure to not wear it around him anymore. When Cas got like that Jack tried to remember how it was Dean would hug him. He made sure to pat his back just the right way and to remember which shoulder it was that he should grab first. He didn’t hug him like normal, crushing his own face into Cas’s shoulders as if it could protect him from the whole world, no, these hugs were all about keeping _Cas_ safe for a change. He knew he never got them exactly right though. He wished he could ask Dean how he made them so perfect.

Jack grew steadily, textbooks going from 5th to 6th to 7th grade in the blink of an eye. Claire took him on hunts more often too, Cas seeming to trust them more and more as the years went by, and to trust Jack wouldn’t use the soul magic. It took everything in him, and only the reminder of Cas’s voice in the back of his head, saying Dean hadn’t sacrificed all he had for Jack to throw something as precious as a soul, to hold him back. Besides, his grace, he knew, was growing back too. It was slow and sluggish, but there were mornings when he would wake up feeling a little warmer inside of him. He would use it for little things, a scrape on Claire’s knee or catching the falling pot before it rammed into Cas’s head. Sometimes it made him angrier than when it was gone, having just a little back, like a reminder of his own failings. He still was less powerful than even Cas with his own ever failing grace.

Claire would whack him on the back of the head when he talked like that.

“What do I have, huh? Not a drip of grace or witchcraft or whatever. And I think I’m pretty fucking useful. Quit whining,” she’d tell him firmly. Claire was always firm with him. She was unrelenting and sometimes easily angry and deeply loving. Once, when he was littler, he’d been shot on a hunt on her watch. It had been alright, just a graze, but it had hurt like hell and he had cried and fallen into her arms. She’d been so quick, disinfecting it with a flask of whiskey, getting him out and into the car, saying to hell with the rest of the nest. He had cried into her as she stitched it up and she’d apologized every step of the way. Afterwards, when he’d woken up from where he’d passed out on the motel bed, he’d been angry at her. Told her over and over that he wasn’t a baby and didn’t need to be coddled and she’d risked lives for his sake. Claire had suddenly broken down then, he’d never seen her cry before and it had startled him.

“Jack...I couldn’t- I couldn’t let anything happen to you,” Claire had gotten out as he lay on the bed staring at her in shock. “If...I know it was irresponsible- but if- shit, I was so scared.”

He had recovered then, and gone to help her, giving her a warm and gentle hug in return. When they continued the hunt the next day, tracking the pack to the town over, they had slid into a booth at the local diner and Claire had flashed a smile at the waitress.

“My kid brother and I are just passing through town, thinking of doing a little hunting nearby, any big game in the woods we should keep an eye out for?” Claire had asked and Jack had covered his gasp in his ice water. She’d never called him that before. The waitress had been instantly helpful. Claire always did well with waitresses, just like Dean had. They never seemed to know what to make of Jack. Sometimes it made him feel like an even bigger child than he was, having to have Claire speak for him like that. But other times it just made him feel safe.

He never told Cas that story, afraid he would get mad and stop them from hunting together, but he suspected Cas knew anyway. He held Jack tighter when they got back to the bunker, a lingering touch as if to make sure he was real, and for Claire he had placed a little kiss on her temple that she had wiped off with the back of her hand and a grin. Cas always seemed to know things without being told, he could read Jack so well, just from the crinkle of his forehead. He had never thought to keep a secret from his father, in fact he was his closest confidante, the one he went to with all his little worries and dreams and questions, but even if he had wanted to he’d have found it impossible. They were cut from too similar a cloth. Looking at his father was looking at his own reflection, only a reflection that loved him more than he ever thought he could love himself.

Those types of accidents didn’t happen on hunts as he got older. He and Claire knew each other’s blindspots like the back of their hands. She had better aim but he was always faster. Jack did great with kids and Claire did great with pretty girls ages 18-30. Jack sometimes had to be coaxed out of showing mercy and Claire never did.

Jack felt finally fully comfortable in himself as a hunter on a werewolf hunt deep in February on an especially bitter and snowy day in Pontiac. Pontiac and werewolves were Claire’s two biggest blindspots. She got knocked to the ground and froze, a wolf’s teeth right up under her chin, and Jack had managed to shoot a silver bullet straight through the head of the one on him and into the one on Claire. She’d been splashed with the blood all over her face and clothes and had pushed the corpse off her, slowly making her way to her feet. He thought he saw a bit of brain in her hair and wondered if she’d be pissed but then noticed the beaming grin on her face.

“Two werewolves, one bullet?” She asked and Jack gave a shaky nod. “In-fucking-credible. Where’s the gap tooth little kid who I had to teach to clean out a shotgun properly?”

They’d torched the bodies but not before Claire had wrenched a tooth from the mouth of the werewolf on her. She had held it out to Jack and offered to bore a hole in it to make him a necklace of it, commemorating his big victory. He’d shook his head.

“That’s not my style,” Jack had said quietly, and then smiled. “I think you should keep it. It’ll keep you safe.”

Claire had laughed and rolled her eyes and he’d never seen her without it. It would dangle amongst her faded t-shirts and flannel, like something out of the old photographs Cas kept beside his bed of times before Jack was born. Jack couldn’t remember when he and Claire had started stealing Dean’s clothes, neither of them fitting in them very well but doing it just the same. At first it had been to catch his smell but with wash after wash that had slowly drifted away. Dean’s clothes fit Cas the best of them all, though Jack had done a double take the first morning he had seen him wearing one of Dean’s old t-shirts. Cas had begun to retire the ever present trench coat and suit, replacing it with jeans and sweaters and such at times. Jack had even started to wear his blue tie on a case and Cas had seemed so quietly proud of him when he had first seen him with it on.

By the time eight years had gone by, Jack began to not feel like a liar when he told people he was eighteen. He could talk with teenagers and feel like he wasn’t talking up to someone but feeling on the same level, or sometimes even above, knowing so much more about the world than they ever would. He started to look at them longingly too, talking in small groups and sharing jokes on their phones, kissing in cars and having nicknames for each other. It wasn’t as if he had no friends, he had Claire, of course, and Alex and Patience and Kaia. But those were _Claire’s_ friends, not his own, they tolerated him with the vague condescension of “Claire’s little brother.” Even with Kaia, who he had known first, there was a weird wedge between them created by the fact that Jack was acutely aware that she was sleeping with his sister and his added guilt over just how badly he’d fucked up her life. He had thought he had Maggie as a friend of his own, but she had gone off to KU only a year after she’d arrived in their world and given up hunting and they’d lost touch. Once he’d asked Claire if she had a best friend, someone she could tell anything to and get an honest answer in response. She’d shrugged and admitted it was probably Alex but Jack couldn’t tell her that ever or she’d kill him. He had laid awake that night and realized his own best friend was probably his dad.

He was sitting in the pizzeria in Lebanon with Cas who noticed him falling into a sullen silence watching a group of teenagers pushing tables together and joking loudly in a corner.

“You’ve barely touched your pizza,” Cas said and Jack looked up abruptly from his food.

“Oh, I’m just not that hungry,” he responded.

“You’ve not been yourself for ages,” Cas continued. “Talk to me. What’s wrong?”

“I’m alright, dad,” Jack said but Cas shook his head. He noticed the teenagers then.

“Is it about… them?” Cas asked and Jack shifted his feet awkwardly.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I just notice whenever we’re around teenagers, kids around your age, you get pretty unhappy,” Cas said. “It’s been going on for months now.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Jack replied but Cas took his hand in his across the table.

“Yes it is,” Cas told him. “Talk to me.”

Jack took a deep breath. He could always talk to his father, he could tell him anything. There was no reason to hide this and it felt worse to do so.

“I don’t know where I fit anymore,” Jack admitted quietly. “Because...I’m not a human, not anymore with my grace growing back. But I’m not fully a nephilim either. And I’ve tried, well I thought, because it was what Dean did and you did and it was so good and helpful, I thought about being a hunter. And I’ve tried, with Claire, but I’m not as good at it, as she is, I’m okay, but I guess I don’t love it, not the way I should. And I feel so all alone all the time and I don’t know why. And I’m not a child anymore but I’m not a grown up really, not fully, and I don’t think I know anything about the world somehow. I don’t think I’ve ever really experienced anything- and I know you want to protect me, and so many people out there would hurt me, but I’d like to try but I don’t know what that means. I just- I haven’t fulfilled some great destiny but I also haven’t gotten to just be a kid. And I just- I don’t know- I just feel useless sometimes and so angry and so-“

“Lost,” Cas finished, a terrible sadness weighing his lined eyes. “You’re lost, Jack.”

They sat there in silence for a long moment, both feeling horribly guilty. Jack couldn’t remember when exactly he’d learned that Cas couldn’t fix everything for him. Maybe he’d never believed it in the first place. It had been years of wanting to fix everything for Cas instead.

“It’s not your fault, dad,” Jack said quietly. Cas couldn’t meet his gaze.

“Well whose is it? You’re my responsibility,” a terrible bitterness entered Cas’s voice. “It was never meant to be like this. I don’t know how- I wasn’t meant to have to do it alone.”

Jack felt a jolt go through him and Cas noticed, looking even more sorry than before.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Cas said. “Oh, baby I’m so sorry.”

Distantly the teenagers began shrieking. They finished the rest of the meal in silence and didn’t speak the rest of the night, both going quietly off to their bedrooms. Jack felt such an ache in his heart, unable to even fall asleep under it. All he wanted was to go into Cas’s room, crawl beside him in bed and turn back into the toddler he’d never been. Eventually he drifted off to sleep.

In the morning, over a breakfast of lucky charms and yogurt, Cas slid a bundle of papers printed out from the internet. Most of it was unintelligible, whole websites printed out meaning pages of ads and the formatting screwed up. Jack leafed through them in confusion.

“What are these?” He asked and Cas sat across from him.

“They’re um- Jack I want to apologize for what I said in the restaurant last night. It was completely inappropriate, you didn’t need that put on you,” Cas began.

“Dad, it’s okay. I know it’s been hard, you don’t have to apologize, I get it,” Jack said but Cas cut him off.

“No, it’s been hard on all of us since we lost Dean and the years, they’ve not made it easier. Everyone said they would but they didn’t. But that’s no excuse. I need to be stronger for you. I should present you with solutions, not just burden you with my own anxieties. It was very wrong of me,” Cas said and Jack wanted to keep absolving him but Cas kept talking. “Anyway, I was looking last night, I was on the internet you see, and I started looking into colleges and such and I called Jody and Mary about it a little too, not that they were thrilled to hear from me at that hour, but they were very helpful, and I printed out some websites and I thought we could look through them this morning maybe. And if you want to, just if you want to, start figuring out how you can start applying.”

Jack stared at Cas in shock.

“Is this for real?” He asked him after a long moment and Cas nodded.

“It’s very real. I’ve um, we both know I’ve kept you maybe a little too close to the nest. I’ve trusted no one but Claire with you. And that- Jack that was more about me than it was about you. And it wasn’t fair. So, I think it’s time we start looking for ways to get you out of the nest,” Cas told him carefully. “But only if this is what you want, I don’t want to push you.”

“But what will you do?” Jack asked instinctively. Cas furrowed his brow.

“What do you mean, Jack?”

“Who will take care of you?” The question was gentle and well intentioned, but he saw immediately how it shattered Cas.

“That’s not your job,” Cas said stiffly. “I’m supposed to take care of you.”

“But...but who will do it? If i’m not here?” Jack asked again, feeling a strange hysteria rise up in him. “You’ll have no one. You’ll be all alone here. I don’t want that. I can’t leave you alone like that- he wouldn’t want me to-“

Jack didn’t realize he was crying until it began hitting the yogurt before him. Cas walked over and wrapped his arms around his back. They stayed there a long time, until Jack calmed down. Then Cas turned him around and knelt before him like he had so many times before, and lifted his chin with his hand.

“It’s all going to be alright, Jack,” Cas said firmly. And somehow those were the perfect words in that moment and Jack, with his whole heart, believed him.

College suddenly became all they talked about. Whenever people visited, Jody or Mary or Bobby or Donna, they’d ask him about it, offer sage words of wisdom and stories of nieces and nephews who’d had the most incredible times. Alex and Patience told him stories of their own experiences and Kaia offered him names of places she’d looked at. It made him smile a little, though it also increased his nerves. It was a heavy weight, everyone assuming he would find such great success. He wouldn’t know what he would do in the face of failure.

Claire, for her part, began to keep him at a bit of a distance, snapping at him sometimes too, far more than she ever had.

It was after a hunt, the two of them driving back toward Kansas, that he broached the subject.

“I’m not just gonna disappear, Claire,” he said and Claire gritted her teeth.

“Who says I was worried about that? Knowing Cas you’ll be home every weekend,” she joked bitingly.

“I won’t stop hunting with you either,” Jack added. Claire rolled her eyes.

“Like I’d care if you did,” Claire replied, and cranked up the music. Patti Smith screaming “War! Children! It’s just a shot away!” came through the airwaves. Jack scrunched up his nose.

“Dean would hate for you to play a cover. He’d say it’s polluting it,” Jack told her primly. She huffed out a laugh.

“It’s not my fault he was such a goddamn dinosaur,” Claire grumbled. “And he was a hypocrite too because he’d listen to Jimi’s “Watchtower” not Dylan’s.”

“Who even listens to Dylan’s “Watchtower”? And it doesn’t count if it was-”

“Made before 1979,” Claire finished. “Yeah, I know, I know. Ugh. Well, how do you think he’d feel knowing you like Lana’s “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” better than The Animals’?”

“He’d hate me for it,” Jack laughed. “Which would also be hypocritical, because Nina Simone performed it first.”

“Right, but either way, get off your high horse,” Claire ordered. “And at least Patti Smith can sing. I don’t know how you and Cas can stomach that whiney Lana crap.”

“You’re being a dick,” Jack told her, but with a smile in his eyes. Then he softened. “It really won’t be different.”

“I know that,” she said quietly, eyes on the road, illuminated by the street lights. “I just feel like- I don’t know, everyone’s gonna move on from me. I mean, Kaia and I are rarely solid. And Alex has her nursing thing and Patience got her degree and keeps talking about moving on from Sioux Falls, some nice job offer in St. Louis. And now you, I don’t know. I’m always gonna be here and I’m happy for you, but also…” She trailed off. Jack stared at her: his big sister in every way that mattered. She’d been everything to him, the perfect replacement for the lost hero before her and then an even bigger hero in her own right. It was strange, to suddenly feel like equals, when he had been looking up to her his whole life.

“Claire, it’s just an experiment,” he said truthfully. “I don’t wanna leave the life, I don’t wanna leave you. And even if- you’re always gonna be my sister. And that’s bigger than hunting or anything. It’s like Dean always said, you don’t leave family behind. So no matter what, I’m always gonna be here. I love you.”

Claire raised her eyebrows and did a strange shake of her head. Then her mouth quirked into a smile.

“You love me?” Claire joked. “You looooove me?” Jack rolled his eyes.

“Shut up,” Jack said. “I was trying to be sweet.”

“Freak,” Claire, shot with a laugh.

“Asshole,” Jack replied. They didn’t need to bring it up again.

Cas was being so much cooler about all of it than Jack would’ve expected, he supposed because it was his idea. He hadn’t even blinked an eye when Jack had looked at farther and farther away schools, just asked helpful questions about their party life or acceptance rates. There was suddenly a lot of work to be done, getting transcripts and test scores and recommendations together (a lot of falsifying they both realized and emailing Charlie for help). They didn’t get a chance to breathe or really think about what it meant that they were doing. It wasn’t as though Jack had never been away from home, he’d probably been farther away and for longer than most, but this was something permanent. It meant the severing of a cord both needed more than they could admit was getting closer and closer with each passing day.

When the letter came in from Bennington, a sort of reality crashed in on them both. It had been a mutual first choice for months. Being very accommodating to homeschoolers and very anti-standardized testing, with a strong liberal arts curriculum that promised to be accommodating to Jack who had no idea what he would want to study in, it sort of ticked all the boxes. Cas kept remarking on the phone to Jody how he thought Jack needed an “intimate and nurturing environment if he’s going to flourish” and that “a big state school would just stifle his creativity,” which made Claire crinkle her nose and laugh and Jack quietly agree. Rowena had apparently once told Cas that money “would never be a worry” and so it had all essentially clicked into place. Jack committed and didn’t know why he suddenly felt as scared as he had when Lucifer took his grace all those years ago. Cas had understood it though, and he had let him sleep in his bed for the first time in years. Jack assumed they both needed it.

Then it was all buying essentials and making a packing list and filling out forms. Once they were in the soap aisle of Walmart and Cas suddenly turned to Jack.

“When did you get so grown up?” He asked him. Jack tilted his head in response.

“Gradually, I guess,” Jack admitted. Cas shook his head, gazing fondly but with awe in his eyes.

“I don’t know what I did to deserve you,” Cas told him. “I’m sorry, it just- I guess it just hit me.”

“It’s okay, dad,” Jack said and hugged his father then, among the smells of soap and the tinny pop music on the speakers. Cas pressed his face into his hair and Jack patted his back. Something in that triggered something in Cas. And Jack heard his father’s voice, barely a whisper, muffled into Jack’s neck:

“I wish he was here to see this.”

Jack squeezed his father tighter. He wished it too, more than he could put into words.

In August, they had a going away party, at the bunker. Everyone seemed to be there, Jody and Donna and the girls of course, Mary and Bobby, Charlie and Stevie, Maggie, Jules, and some of the other apocalypse world refugees, Garth, Bess, and the kids, even Sam and Rowena, who never seemed to stop by. Cas was doing his best playing host, though was a little overwhelmed, and Claire seemed to have to keep taking over. For Jack’s part, he was also a little overcome by all the attention and well wishes. It made it all so real and the expectations even realer. He was again presented with the feeling that he couldn’t fail. The worst were the thousands of claps on his back telling him how proud Dean would be if he could see him, how he would have been ecstatic to have a son going to college. Mary had even taken him aside and kindly told him that he would be the first Winchester to graduate, if he made ir, Sam the first to even go at all. It was all a little too much, and he found himself in the hallway, drinking a can of pepsi and leaning with his back against the cold wall. That was where Sam found him.

“Hey,” Sam said, with a wave.

“Hello,” Jack said back to him, and gave a wave in return. Sam smiled.

“You did that from right when you were born,” Sam told him. “It was such a sweet little quirk.”

“Thank you,” Jack replied. Sam sat down across from him, his long legs pulled up to himself so as not to block the whole hallway.

“You know, college, it’s uh, it’s a big adjustment. I felt like a freaking loner for months when I got there. Had a real rough freshman year,” Sam said. “So you just gotta sort of stick with it and pull through. And if you don’t, you know, it’s not the end of the world.”

“Right,” Jack said, drinking his soda, his stomach churning suddenly.

“We should um we should talk more often, right?” Sam said, as if it was a startling new revelation and Jack felt a strange anger rise up in him. “I mean I can give you a lot of probably good advice on this all. What to pack, you know, whatever. If you want.”

“Sure,” Jack said cooly and Sam seemed to get the hint. He sat up straighter.

“I know I haven’t really been there that much…” Sam began.

“I think this is the most we’ve spoken in nine years,” Jack bluntly told him. Sam grimaced.

“Yeah, well, Cas and I have had some, I don’t know, differences on how you should be raised. It’s complicated and not really my place,” Sam said quickly, and then pulled something from his pocket. It was a crumpled, slightly yellowed envelope that quickly caught Jack’s eyes. “Anyway, none of this matters. This is all preamble, I just, I have something for you.”

“What is it?” Jack asked, a greediness entering his body. Sam extended the letter out towards him but suddenly Jack was terrified to touch it.

“It's a um, a letter, from Dean. To you. He told me to wait to give it to you until you came of age. Now seemed as good a time as any,” Sam said, a small heaving sigh emitting afterwards. “You can have it, if you want.”

Jack reached out with shaking fingers and snatched it. There on the front of the envelope, in old blue ball point ink, was ever familiar blunt lettering. Architect’s handwriting, Cas had once told him with a fond smile, noting an annotation in a lore book. Just his name was written there, Jack took a moment, his heart hammering in his chest, and then tore it open, pulling the loose leaf paper from inside of it out and letting the envelope fall to the floor in his haste to read it.

_Jack,_

_Hey kid, it’s me. I don’t know what you think of me at this point. Hopefully fondly. But, I’m not sure how much I’ve done to deserve that. I guess that’s up to you to figure out. Some days I hate my old man, some days I still miss him. I don’t know exactly which days are the right ones._

_So you’re a man now huh? Or you should be, if Sammy actually listened to me. That’s just, well that’s crazy. Probably because right now I can remember the day you were born as if it was yesterday. Which I guess it sort of was. For me. Damn, we did not get off to the best start did we?_

_I try not to think about that. Regrets aren’t the best for me right now. Instead I try to think about the day we went fishing. Or that ghoul case we absolutely crushed together. Shit, what are our memories where something wasn’t going horribly wrong? We got dealt a really awful hand, kid. But that’s life I guess._

_I don’t know if I’d want you to be a hunter now or not. I’ve thought it over a lot and can’t decide. I guess, either way, it’s your life and you decide what to do with it. All I want is you to be happy and safe, and I know I left you in the best hands I can think of. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone love someone the way Cas loves you. He’s a better father to you than I probably ever could be._

_Anyway, since I don’t want any regrets I’m going to put in writing how sorry I am. Not just for specific things I said or did but for ever making you feel like you’re not a part of this family. Because you are, you’re my boy, my only boy, you always will be. I never thought I would have one- never dreamed I’d be much good at it, and then you came along. Like the goddamn greatest gift I could ever think of. I just didn’t see it right away. I wish I could just live in the good memories, the way you smiled at me, looking so much like your dad that it made my head spin, but I gotta acknowledge the bad. I wish I could be there to make it up to you, but I’m hoping what I did was enough._

_I hope you’ll forgive me for doing this. One day, I think, you will. You’ll understand I had no other choice. We had no choice. We had to keep you safe. It wasn’t easy, but someone had to do it. And if it means that you got to grow up and be happy, then it was worth it to me. Screw the whole world, that’s enough on its own._

_I wish I could’ve told you goodbye, given you one last hug, told you to your face how much you mean to me. But I think, if I saw you before this all, I’d probably not be able to do it. It was hard enough to leave. And I wouldn’t want to burden you with any of this. I wouldn’t want you to grow up like I did, either, haunted by something you can’t understand._

_I am gonna shift a little burden onto you now, now that you’re a grown up. And it’s sort of unfair of me but I know someone’s gotta ask you since he never would. You gotta look after him for me, okay? I’m sure Claire has been doing a great job, but you growing up, moving out, I know that’s gonna be anything but easy on him. And that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it, but you can’t forget him. He needs you so bad, Jack, and I don’t want him to be alone. I don’t want either of you to be alone. You take care of each other, you hear me? You’re all he has._

_This is getting sorta wordy and you’re probably wondering when this old geezer will wind it up so you can go back to whatever amazing thing you were just doing. So, I’ll finish it up. I’m proud of you, so proud of you, whoever or whatever you are, I’m proud. I feel that in my bones, Jack. Cas, Sam, your mom, they were right about you. You’re nothing but good._

_I’ll see you one day, somehow, I know it. Maybe it won’t be for what feels like forever, but I have to believe we’ll see each other again. Until then, I want you to keep moving and keep living and not worry about me. That’s what I want most, you gotta believe me._

_I love you, kid. You gotta know that,_

_Dean_

Jack pressed the letter against his chest and closed his eyes. Something was burning in them that seemed to spread through his whole body. His heart was swinging from joy to sorrow to rage and then to one large question. Pieces began to slot into place then, with a slow but frightening speed. He opened his eyes and looked at Sam. Sam’s jaw was set and there was something foreign in his eyes. He wondered how inevitable everyone around him had found this moment.

“How did he write this, if he died suddenly on a hunt?” Jack asked slowly, trying to keep his heart from leaping out of his throat. Sam sighed.

“This is what Cas and I disagreed about,” Sam said plainly, clearly the previous ban on the details of that were washed away. “That and a lot of things I guess. I don’t know. I wanted to tell you. He didn’t. I thought you could be of help. He...well he just didn’t want to tell you. Ever, probably, if he had his way.”

“Tell me what?” Jack asked him, terrified of the answer.

“Jack…” Sam began, and ran his fingers through his ever long hair. “Dean isn’t dead.”

Jack waited until everyone was gone to talk to Cas. Somehow decorum was able to hold through the rest of the party, as rage boiled inside of Jack. They were cleaning up the kitchen, drying the last of the dishes when Cas looked at Jack, a gentle smile on his face.

“You’re quiet,” Cas said. “Everything alright?”

Jack’s eyes were stony as they bored into Cas’s and he saw the smile slip off of his father’s face. Jack clenched the counter tightly.

“Sam told me,” Jack spat out. The color drained from Cas’s face.

“Told you what?” Cas asked quietly. Jack would’ve laughed if he could.

“About Dean. He’s not dead. Neither is Michael. They built a box and put them in the ocean and they’ve been there the whole time. Drowning every day. And Sam wanted to tell me but you didn’t and so he left and you’ve lied to me every single day,” Jack felt a distance from his words, like he was telling a story about someone he didn’t know. Cas, for his part, seemed crushed.

“I did what he asked me to,” Cas told him. Jack shook his head.

“You let him,” he said through gritted teeth. “How could you let him?”

“I didn’t have a choice. If I could’ve done anything else- I couldn’t stop him,” Cas had an edge rising in his voice but Jack didn’t want to hear it.

“You could’ve let me help!” Jack barked and Cas flinched.

“Without your powers? You’d just have been killed.”

“I had my powers!”

“Your soul.” Cas sounded anguished. “It would have cost you your soul. That was the only way you could have gotten power like that back then.”

“Who cares about my soul? He’s stuck in a box! You left him! He’s suffering! And I could save him! What else would matter?” Jack yelled. It was all so stupid, so trivial. What was a soul? He didn’t even realize he had one. What was a soul to Dean’s life? What was a soul to his fathers being happy?

“Why else would it matter? Jack, can you imagine what would happen if you didn’t have your soul? And even then, who knows if you would be powerful enough? Michael still could’ve killed you- even with all your grace-” Cas was cut off by Jack harshly.

“It doesn’t matter! None of it matters! You lied to me! For years! Every day! This has all been a lie!” Jack screamed and Cas took a step back, violently shaking his head.

“No, it hasn’t! I’ve been doing what I can! It’s been real, it’s been so real. I wanted to protect you, he told me- he told me not to tell you. To never tell you, until you had your grace back and were old enough. He didn’t want you to have that burden or that guilt. It was his last wish, Jack. And I agreed with him, of course I did. It was what was best for you, one day you’ll understand.” Cas finished and Jack wanted to throw up. Everything seemed to be crashing down so suddenly.

“I’ll never understand. Never! You’re- you’re a monster!” Jack wanted to hurt Cas as badly as he could. He wanted to tear him to pieces. He took a breath, trying to calm himself and failing to do so. “Who knew?” Cas was silent. “Who knew?! Besides Sam who knew?!”

“Sam wasn’t supposed to tell you- he wasn’t meant to give you that letter until we had talked it over, until we were sure you had all your grace back, it was selfish and irresponsible and vengeful of him-”

“Who goddamn knew?” Jack yelled and picked a pot up beside him and banged it down hard. Cas flinched. He looked down.

“Mary, Bobby, Rowena,” Cas said and then paused. Jack had a horrible feeling of what was coming. “And Claire.”

“Claire?” All the air went out of Jack. He had known, he had always sort of known. He thought back to how for years she had balked at heaven talk, it suddenly made sense. But the hurt didn’t lessen.

“I made her promise. And so did he. We all wanted what was best for you, Jack, you have to understand,” Cas sounded like nothing but a broken record to Jack.

“What about what was best for him?” Jack shot back and Cas smiled suddenly, something serene and tearful that made Jack even angrier.

“You’re so like him, you know? This is just how he… sometimes it hurts to look at you, you're so alike. He used to tell me you were all me, but as soon as he was gone I realized how wrong he’d been,” Cas shook his head and looked back up at his son, his eyes more worshipful than paternal. “This is just what he would say. It is just what he said, back then. What did his life matter? All he cared about was taking care of others. The both of you, you’re such better people than I could ever hope to be. He’d be so proud of you Jack, he’d be-”

“Shut up!” Jack screamed and the glasses shattered, glass exploding all over the room, shards hitting them both. Cas shielded himself with his arms and then looked up. Jack’s eyes were glowing gold.

“Jack, you need to calm down,” Cas said, his hands held out before him. Jack could barely hear him. It sounded like there was a tidal wave in his brain.

“You’re a liar! I’ll never forgive you!” Jack shouted.

“I don’t expect you to forgive me, Jack,” Cas began but Jack didn’t want him to keep going. He didn’t want his love and his acceptance or any of it. He hated that Cas wouldn’t get angry, wouldn’t meet him where he was. He needed to fight or he was sure he would die.

“ _I hate you_!” Jack screeched and a jolt of energy came from deep in his grace and blasted Cas backwards, ramming him into the wall, leaving him crumpled on the floor. Cas looked up at him, shock and hurt on his face.

 _Oh no,_ Jack thought, _not again. I can’t hurt him again._ And suddenly finding his wings for the first time in years, where they had settled deep within him, he stretched them out like old friends behind them. Cas’s eyes widened in awe.

“Jack...please...listen to me…” Cas begged, but in a flap of rage and fear and guilt he was gone.

He went to Claire because he had nowhere else to go. He showed up in the seat of her car where she was driving on the highway off from the bunker towards her next case. She jumped.

“Jesus Christ Jack! What the fuck?” She asked him. “You can fly again.”

Jack nodded numbly.

“What happened?” She asked. But he couldn’t speak. “Okay,” she said calmly. “Whatever.” And she let him curl up in the seat of her car and go to sleep and clearly pretended she didn’t see the tears on his face or the blood on his hand where the glass had cut it up.

When Jack woke up he was lying on a motel bed, his neck was sore, and his hand was bandaged. The clock beside his bed said it was 20 past noon. Claire was dressed and had a plastic bag from Gas n Sip full of food which she told him he could only get his hands on if he promised to talk. His stomach won that battle.

They sat on the motel floor like little kids, tearing into candy bars and taquitos and enormous bags of salt and vinegar chips. Jack told her about the night before between bites. He wasn’t angry at her, he realized, he was still furious at Cas, and Sam, too, (though for the opposite reason), but not at Claire. He couldn’t be angry at her, with her werewolf tooth necklace and her offer of junk food and the blue eyes that were so like his own. A part of him, a tiny voice, absolved her because if Dean had asked that of him, he’d have done the same to her. He wouldn’t have questioned it.

“It was fucked up of Sam to tell you,” Claire eventually said. “Fucked up and selfish.”

“It was fucked up and selfish of Cas to keep it from me,” Jack shot back but Claire shook her head.

“Jack, you were like, not even two at the time. Mentally, you were maybe ten, if I’m gonna be generous. What was Cas supposed to do?” Claire asked.

“Not lie to me,” Jack said concretely. It was all so black and white. Lying was wrong, he knew that. No one else ever seemed to understand it.

“Sure, but like, and then what? Because yeah, you’d have swanned in and tried to save Dean and probably died,” Claire told him.

“So what?” Jack asked. “It’s better to leave Dean to a fate worse than death so that I can live? Enough people have made sacrifices for me.”

“People aren’t going to stop making sacrifices for you, Jack,” Claire said. “It’s stupid, but they won’t. I mean, I know I won’t.”

“Well, they shouldn’t. You shouldn’t.”

“Well, we love you,” Claire replied and he couldn’t tease her for that like she had to him before. He took another bite in his rapidly cooling taquito, forcing himself to chew. “Cas did everything he could to give you a good life and it was none of Sam’s business getting in the way of that. I don’t know who he thought he was for doing that but it was just completely wrong and out of line.”

“Would anyone have ever told me?” Jack asked.

“When you got your grace back that was always the plan,” Claire explained. “That’s what Dean told me, in my letter.”

“So everyone got a letter?”

“Yeah,” she admitted. “I wasn’t there, when he did it. No one was. But Cas came to pick me up right after and I know he had one and so did Sam and Mary. And clearly Sam also had one for you. I think it was just the four of us and you. And then Bobby and Rowena got let into the loop, for Sam and Mary’s sakes.”

“Why was it such a big secret?” Jack didn’t fully understand that part, as the dust cleared. Claire looked uncomfortable.

“For you sake,” she finally said. “It’s what Cas insisted. You were his baby. He wanted to do everything he could for you.”

“I hate him,” Jack repeated, finding the sentiment to still be true.

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes I do. With all my heart.” Claire laughed at him then.

“You’re such a spoiled brat,” Claire told him and his face scrunched up with anger.

“I am not!”

“Are too! Everyone has spent the last nine years desperately dancing around you and your feelings, trying to make sure you turn out as well adjusted as possible, and now what, you’re mad at them for it? Jesus Christ, Jack. Like, grow up about it,” Claire said.

“Everyone lied to me!” Jack was astonished. Claire rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, but like, to protect you. Everything Cas has ever done was to protect you. And me too, I mean, no one has ever looked after me like this. Not since I was pretty damn little. Certainly, no one ever did for Dean. Everything he wanted for you came true, you lived a better life than he ever did, we both did, I think, when we get down to it, which sets the bar pretty low. Stop complaining about it,” Claire had such a definitive way about saying things. It was like the way Dean would lay down the law about stuff. _You can’t stay up past 10, we’re not stopping for breakfast, you’re not ready to come on the hunt, quit whining_. Cas didn’t parent like that, it was rare things weren’t up for negotiation.

“I’m not a baby,” Jack argued.

“You were though. And you still sort of are,” Claire told him. “I mean, come on, Cas is millions of years old and you’re an incoming college freshman.”

“No, I’m not,” Jack said and only realized it as he said it. “I’m not going to college.”

Claire looked at him sadly.

“You’re just gonna throw this all away?” She asked him.

“Can I keep hunting with you?” He said, not responding to her question.

“Yes,” Claire answered immediately, and then added, “you’re such a spoiled brat.”

Jack huffed but took it in stride, or at least he thought he did.

“Are you gonna at least tell him where you are?” Claire asked. Jack shook his head.

“I don’t wanna talk to him.”

“Okay, so I’ll tell him you’re alive because he’s been texting me non stop since last night.” Claire whipped out her phone.

“I don’t know why he worries so much. I’m the most dangerous thing out here. At this point,” Jack knew that. He knew his grace was almost all back as surely as the return of a limb.

“You’re his baby,” Claire said with a shrug and then seemed to sober. “You’re all he has Jack, do you realize that?”

“Dean said that in his letter. He told me to take care of him,” Jack begrudgingly admitted. “I can’t right now, Claire. I can’t even look at him.”

Claire was quiet for a moment, her lips pursed. She rapped her fingers against the sole of her combat boots.

“Do you remember what it was like when we lost Dean, like right after?” Claire asked and Jack averted his eyes from her own, not ready to have the reflection bore into him. “You went to bed. I remember. And so did everyone else in the house. But I, I had never slept in the bunker. I didn’t have a bed made up, and I didn’t know what to do. So Cas… he stayed up with me, and he fixed me dinner because I was still sort of hungry because I’d been driving all day, I think it was Dean’s cooking, he heated it up in the microwave. And he made me up a bed and got me towels and everything. And the next morning, he was doing laundry and worrying about what you would eat for breakfast, and all the guests he suddenly had. He wouldn’t really even let me help. And it was like that for all those days into weeks into months into years afterwards. He just kept going. He never had a chance to fall apart. When I saw him, right after, he looked so broken. I mean, like a fucking empty shell of a person. And I was sure, I mean, Sam gave some little side eyed look, and I knew, in my bones, he would never be okay again. But we got back home, and he just snapped back into place. Because there was work to be done. He knew that. You had to be taken care of. Everything had to be suddenly set in order. And he’s never stopped doing that. I don’t know what will happen if he stops. Maybe he needs to move and be helpful or he’ll really lose it for good. I’m not a shrink or whatever. But I do think that you’re being pretty fucking ungrateful after he did all that. He lied to you. Okay. Boo hoo. Grow up. People did more fucked up things to you before you were even two years old.”

Jack sat in stunned silence. It was worse than being slapped and he sort of wished Claire had done that, had given him the fight he so desperately wanted. He could hurt but not be fought. He hated it. Even if he hit her now, she wouldn’t hit back like he wanted. And he couldn’t hit her anyway without a fear of really breaking her. He wished he wasn’t made of something so rotten.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you speak that much at once,” Jack finally told her. Claire shrugged her shoulders.

“Whatever.”

“I’m gonna go save him, Claire,” Jack said. “Whatever it takes.” Claire stood up.

“Sure, but I think you should probably talk to your dad first.”

With that she went to the bathroom, leaving him alone on the floor with nothing but regret and the greasy junk food taste coating his mouth.

Claire’s plan for getting Jack to call Cas was pretty simple to figure out. It benefited her and only her and was unfortunately quite effective. Kaia joined them at their motel room and Jack was excited to get to talk to her, have her weigh in and possibly give him some advice. However, all she gave him was a “hey kid” before Claire had her hands on her hips and had ordered Jack out.

“We gotta catch up and you have some thinking to do,” Claire said firmly. “Put the “do not disturb” sign out if you please.”

Jack had been aghast but ultimately did as he was told, not wanting to stay a moment longer. He wandered the motel halls aimlessly for what felt like hours, awaiting Claire's text to let him back in that never came. He scrolled aimlessly through social media, watched _Riverdale_ on his phone, and tried to do anything but think about what she’d ordered him to think about. He wasn’t the one in the wrong and he didn’t need to reach out. He knew that. Everyone else just needed to figure it out.

As it was getting darker he went for a walk to catch the sunset and because the motel wallpaper was driving him insane. As he was halfway across the parking lot his phone buzzed.

_SAM: Hey, do you wanna talk? Realize I laid a lot on you last night. We’re still good though?_

Jack threw his phone onto the asphalt, hard. He hoped the screen would shatter. Instead the heavy duty case Cas had gotten from Marshalls held true. It bounced and he had to ungracefully go and pick it up. That felt like a sort of final straw for him and he fished his never used fake ID from the back of his wallet and walked the three blocks to the nearest liquor store.

The guy behind the counter didn’t even give him a weird look when he inspected his card, though he was sure he was sweating the whole time. He hadn’t even known what to get and ended up getting a big thing of whiskey because he was pretty sure Dean used to have it in the house. He wasn’t certain, though, because half his memories were just memories of memories after a point and he didn’t know what he was embellishing or filling in. The thought alone sent a shiver down his spine.

He sat on the curb in the parking lot and drank it, it tasted like ass and burned on its way down but he figured a punishment to be a sort of good thing even though he was still insisting to himself that he was in the right. His grace, he assumed, would keep him from getting too wasted, but he quickly found that to not be true and when half the bottle was consumed he was as nauseous as when he’d caught a stomach flu March the year before and had been laid up for a week, Cas coming by every few hours with gatorade and a wastebasket. When he tried to stand up, the world was spinning and he thought his own hands looked alien and cruel in the cold streetlights.

It was then that he cried uncle, texting Claire to let him in and that he didn’t feel well. But she didn’t get back to him and it was pretty damn late and he assumed she was either asleep or distracted by Kaia again. He wanted to start crying, bang on the door until she let him in. He wanted to fly to Dean right then, would have if he’d known where he was. He was useless, he realized, a brat like Claire had said and a baby like Cas thought and his father, his father who he had loved and worshipped, who had sacrificed everything for him was in agony and he couldn’t do a thing and everything he’d ever known wasn’t true. He wanted to rip out his grace with his bare hands because what use was it to him? He tried banging his fists against his chest like he did as a child, but found he barely felt it, not with the warmth of the whiskey running through his veins. Finally, he finished the bottle and then promptly threw up all over his shoes.

That was when he started crying, thick, stupid, ugly, childish tears from the burn of vomit and whiskey down his throat and the way his head was spinning and how badly he wanted, needed his dad. His wings ached to spread behind him and fly to Cas, to arms he knew were waiting for him and would forgive all and make him better with a touch to his forehead. But he didn’t know he deserved that or wasn’t ready to fully give in. Instead, he pulled out his cell phone and settled for the next best thing.

“Jack? Is that you? Where are you?” Cas asked immediately, picking up on the first ring. “I’ve been so worried.”

“Hey dad…” Jack muttered, trying to hide the shake in his voice and knowing he was failing quite tremendously.

“Are you still with Claire?” Cas asked him.

“Yeah, I’m just...I’m outside but I’m at the motel with her. I’m alright,” he told him.

“That’s so good to hear,” Cas said. “Listen, Jack, I know you’re angry, and you have a right to be, but why don’t you come home and we can talk this through-”

“Remember when I was little and I would ask you to take me fishing and tell you that one day, when we got to heaven, Dean would teach us to do it right? Because we never caught any,” Jack rambled, “and you would just laugh and ruffle my hair and I don’t know how you did that, dad. I don’t know how your heart wasn’t breaking right then and there. And I don’t even mean this in that I’m mad you didn’t tell me the truth but just I don’t know how you could bear it. Because I couldn’t. I don’t think I ever could, not in a million years.”

He heard the sound of Cas’s breathing on the other side of the line and Jack wondered if he was crying but didn’t think so. He realized he was himself, again, tears slipping down his cheeks more quietly.

“I don’t know how I could bear it either,” Cas admitted, voice barely a whisper and Jack wondered if this was the first honest thing he’d said to him in nine years. “And I could hear him… in my head. All the time, I still do. Praying. Letting me know…” Cas trailed off. “You know how I felt about Dean, feel about Dean. I don’t think I ever really kept it a secret from you.”

“I knew, dad,” Jack affirmed. It had never been a question in his mind. “I knew how he felt about you too. I’ve always known.”

“Yeah,” Cas said, little more of a breath than a word. “It doesn’t make it easier. I have tried to be good for you, Jack. It has taken everything in me and it has been the greatest joy of my life. I mean that completely. But I am not a superhero. I made a lot of mistakes. I don’t know if keeping this from you was one or not. Maybe you will never forgive me. Maybe I don’t deserve your forgiveness. But I have tried. And I will keep trying as long as you let me.”

Jack let those words wash over him, guilt and love all at once.

“I wish you were easier to hate,” Jack finally said. “But you just love me too much,” he heard Cas’s little laugh through the phone. “And I love you too much back.”

“Please don’t go off and do something stupid, Jack,” Cas gently pleaded with him. “I want you to rescue him more badly than I can put into words but not until you’re ready. Please.”

“My powers-” Jack began.

“I can’t lose you too,” Cas cut in quickly. “If you can't stop for yourself then stop for my sake. I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose you both.”

A picture began to form in Jack’s head of how Cas must be right then, overwhelmed with grief and worry and guilt. He thought back to Claire’s words, of how he had been right after they’d lost Dean, and Cas’s own admission of hearing Dean in his head every day. Jack wondered if this was the first time he’d ever really seen his dad as a person, a complete picture and not just a loving force on a pedestal. Someone to care for him and be cared for in turn but never deeper than that. He somehow loved him even better like this.

“When your powers come back, fully, look we’ll talk to Billie, we’ll make a plan, we’ll do it all, but not for now. I’m begging you.”

“Okay,” Jack said, quiet but certain. “Alright.”

“Thank you,” Cas told him, sighing in relief.

“I can’t come home right now,” Jack added. “I think I’m gonna stay and hunt with Claire for a bit. I don’t think I can go to Bennginton. It wouldn’t feel right.”

“This isn’t what we wanted, if Sam hadn’t-” Cas began again but Jack cut him off.

“Dad, this is what I need right now. I’ll come home soon, I promise. And I’ll figure things out. But I think, being with Claire, doing this, it’s probably the best thing for us both, for a little bit.”

“If that’s what you need.”

“It’s what I need.”

“Alright.”

“I’m gonna hang up now.”

“Alright.”

“I’ll call in the morning?”

“Good. I can’t wait. Get some sleep.”

“I love you, dad,” Jack said, slow and meaningful and not perfunctory in the slightest.

“I love you too,” Cas replied and something in Jack wished to stay in that silence where he was young and safe, to not end the call. But he knew if he stayed a moment more he’d be tempted to relent and go home. So he clicked off the call and skulked back to his room. He found the door unlocked, and Kaia and Claire asleep in each other’s arms in the next bed. He quietly tucked himself into bed, and quickly passed out.

Claire was more than chill with having a permanent hunting buddy. Jack knew, with a quiet smile he hid from her, that it was what she had always wanted anyway. Kaia was a partner in love and life, sure, and Alex was a best friend. But Jack was someone to kill with, to always know the blind spots of, to protect in the heat of the battle and dress the wound of after. That was its own kind of special. He knew it. And he knew how he and Claire being their own perfect little mirror images was special, too. It was true, what he had told Cas, about not loving hunting, not truly, not like Claire did, but she could make him at least half love it.

It was different, a full time life on the road. He found himself, somehow, able to meet people more. There were hunting buddies of Claire’s and people they saved and waitresses and motel receptionists and morticians. His world, so closed and safe for so many years, began to expand. Claire joked about it, calling him a regular social butterfly and Jack blushed and shoved her away. It was sort of true though. The loneliness that had burrowed deep into him seemed to lessen, just a little. He would gush to Cas about it on the phone, as he listened appreciatively, Jack imaging his smile on the other side of the phone and missing him more terribly than he wanted to admit.

There were also people he met that he couldn’t tell his dad about. He hadn’t really known who to tell when the boy had kissed him after a hunt in New Mexico, tasting sweaty and salty and good. He had known even less who to tell when, a few months later, they had worked a case in Ann Arbor and he had wound up laid up in some sophomore’s bed after a frat party that he and Claire had been searching for a possible demonic possession. The boy had been nice enough, Morgan, he had said his name was. Though Jack had gotten the impression he’d probably have laughed at him if he had mentioned this was his first time, so he’d kept it to himself.

Claire had discovered the evidence of that the morning after, when she’d called him about where he was. She’d looked him up and down as he hurried out of the dorm to her waiting car and raised an eyebrow.

“Dean would kill him and then you and then me for allowing this to happen,” she told him bluntly. “Get in the car and shut up.”

He’d felt both a little proud and a little empty the whole rest of the drive.

They were beginning to get a bit of a reputation, him and Claire. Maggie texted him for the first time in forever and mentioned how she kept hearing these rumors about a new generation of Winchesters out there and if that was him. He’d bashfully told her that yes it was.

_MAGGIE: You should hear what they say about you both. You’re already living legends. The way you guys took on those hellhounds in Maine? People won’t forget that._

_JACK: I thought you’re not hunting anymore._

_MAGGIE: No, but I still keep in touch. Try to be a safe house when I can. You can’t really leave the life for good I don’t think. I mean once you know what’s out there…_

_JACK: Yeah._

_MAGGIE: Heard you were gonna go to some fancy college though? What happened with that?_

_JACK: Plans changed._

The shame of dropping Bennington did creep up on him sometimes. He had only delayed, not declined, hypothetically he knew he could go back whenever, but he also felt strangely sure that he wouldn’t go back. Wouldn’t or couldn’t, he didn’t know, but it certainly wasn’t going to happen. He hated remembering that party in light of it all, even before Sam had given him the letter. They had all been so excited for him. The smiling faces and their loving expectations pressed behind his eyes whenever he tried to go to sleep.

He had blocked Sam’s number. It was petty probably, and maybe even unwarranted. And he knew he had no logical reason to forgive his dad but still be angry with Sam. If anything, he realized it should be the reverse. But Sam kept texting him, asking about his plans moving forward, how he heard he had moved out and how he thought it was brave of him, how he knew he had turned down Bennington and telling him he understood. When it came down to it, Jack really couldn’t handle desperate attempts to relate to him from a man who hadn’t made any efforts to do that for most of his life.

“He only cares because he wants you to free Dean,” Claire had once glibly told him, while the two of them shared some beers on the hood of her car, alcohol freeing up her tongue just slightly.

“Well, I am going to free Dean,” Jack had shot back, suddenly defensive.

“I know that. But he- I don’t think he really wants you to wait for when you’re ready,” Claire had replied, voice gently tracing her words as Jack shifted uncomfortably. “Like, he just wants you to do it no matter what. He’s pretending he relates to you but he’s looking at you as a tool.”

“That’s a fucked up thing to say,” Jack had immediately told her, feeling a harshness well up in him that usually wasn’t there. “And it isn’t true at all.”

“He loves his brother,” was all Claire had given in response. A quick dismissive hand wave had accompanied it. “If it was you in there, I’d probably be the same.”

“Cas loves Dean, too!” Jack had shouted then, slamming his beer on the hood of the car. He remembered all Cas had said about hearing Dean’s prayers in his head every day. He couldn’t adhere to Claire’s theory of it being harder for Sam. It didn’t make sense.

“Don’t go slamming bottles, if you scratch my car I’ll kill you,” Claire had quickly told him and he’d sheepishly held the bottle back up towards his chest. “And I’m not saying he doesn’t love him, or even as bad. Life isn’t about ranking love. The fact is though, you’re Cas’s kid. You come first. And Dean told him to put you first. Sam’s just looking at it from another angle.”

“Yeah, well, whatever,” Jack had muttered in response, and gone back to his beer. Claire had kindly changed the subject.

He thought about it a lot, especially after that. He remembered how Sam had been one of his ultimate heroes when he was born. He had been the first to care for him, show him kindness. Jack in return would’ve done anything for him. He’d have died for him. But after the church, when Jack had lost his powers and Dean had saved them from Lucifer and then been taken by Michael, Jack realized they’d never been as close again. He couldn’t pinpoint why. He thought about asking Cas about it but was pretty sure there was no way his dad could be unbiased on the subject. Eventually, he did unblock Sam’s number, he only iced him out for a few weeks or so. But when he did Sam had clearly ceased texting him and they didn’t hear from each other again until January, when Jack texted to wish him a Happy New Year. They talked New Year’s Day, kind but awkward words and when he hung up Jack figured it was about as good as they were going to get.

In early February, Jack realized it was coming on ten years since they had lost Dean. He told Claire he thought he would finally go home for the anniversary, be with Cas for that and really seriously talk about next steps. Claire agreed, but as he was getting ready to go, she got a call. When she came back in from taking it, her face looked drawn and slightly worried.

“Uh, that was from this guy Ben that I sorta know,” Claire said. “We have a mutual hunting buddy, this guy Harrison, he’s great, I don’t know how you’ve never met him yet. But uh, he took on this weird disappearance case in Wellington, Ohio and he’s sort of gone AWOL.”

“Can’t your friend, uh Ben, take care of it?” Jack asked, pausing from lacing up his sneakers. Claire shifted her weight.

“Yeah, Ben is like not the hunter that Harrison is. Or to be real, that we are. And he was describing this case to me and it smells sorta like angels. Which, let’s be real, is more our area of expertise. I wouldn’t trust Ben on a hunt like this,” Claire admitted.

“Angels aren’t typical hunt fare unless something bigger is brewing, what’s going on?” Jack questioned.

“Ever heard of grigori?” Jack shook his head in response. Claire continued. “Okay, they’re this class of angel, supposedly went extinct but clearly survived. They used to be healers but they don’t do that instead they um, they feed on humans for years, usually posing as doctors to lure them in. We hunted one, me and Sam and Dean and Cas, back in 2015.”

“It’s what killed your mom,” Jack said, the pieces all coming together. Claire nodded. He understood.

“I’ve still got one of their swords actually, sorta been waiting for the chance,” Claire told him. “Look, if you can’t come, I get it. I can probably handle it on my own and once I rescue Harrison he’ll be good enough back up.”

“No, I get it I’ll come. It’s no big deal and we’ll probably be done in time,” Jack said quickly.

“You don’t have to-“

“Claire, I think I owe it to you,” Jack told her. She shook her head

“Family isn’t about owing,” she replied.

“Well, then I want to help,” Jack said. Claire sighed.

“Alright then.”

It ended up being actually even smoother than Claire had predicted. They easily broke into the quaint little private practice and discovered Harrison hooked up to a drip in the basement. When the grigori had gotten home, they had successfully ambushed him and with a vengeance Claire had run him through with her angel sword. He fell to the floor in a burst of light, wings burned behind him and Claire stood there, catching her breath and a wildness in her eyes.

“I almost wish it wasn’t so easy,” Claire managed to get out once the dust cleared. “I hate those sons of bitches.” Jack put a hand on her shoulder and felt her exhale. Jack understood it. He could only dream of what he’d do to Michael if he got the chance.

He turned around and moved towards the boy lying on the stretcher. He was still asleep, and Jack finally looked him over, taking him in. He was probably twenty, twenty one, younger than Claire and Ben and closer to Jack’s own mental age. He was dressed in that typical hunter fare, faded blue jeans, sturdy brown work boots, a green flannel rolled up on one sleeve to accommodate the drip. A cracked black leather jacket lay across the floor where it had clearly been discarded. His hair looked sort of greasy, probably from him being down here and unwashed for so many days, though it was curly and sort of cute all the same. He had a faint scar starting a little under his nose and running across the left corner of his mouth, that was normal too. Jack was the only hunter he knew who didn’t have scars. He looked weak, sapped of energy, and something about him, some elusive thing, was incredibly beautiful. Claire went over and stood beside him, inspecting Harrison herself.

“He’s not gonna make it,” Claire said softly. Jack turned to her, aghast.

“What? He’s alive, we saved him,” Jack began but Claire shook her head.

“You can’t heal the wounds inflicted by a grigori. We learned this last time. If he’s fed on him, that’s it. He’s gone. Cas couldn’t do a thing for any of the victims. It’s only the grigori itself that can keep him alive,” Claire shook her head violently, furious. “I had hoped…” she trailed off. “I”m gonna call his dad, he’s a hunter too. He’ll wanna come say goodbye or get the body or something.” And she abruptly went upstairs to put in the call, leaving Jack alone with the dying young man.

It all felt so pathetic to Jack, just one more failure and he’d delayed seeing Cas and caring for him to do this. He hadn’t even been the one to kill the grigori. Yet again, he wondered what exactly he was good for. Who was he ever saving? He wanted to cry like a little kid or call Cas and ask him to fix it. Again his wings twitched to fly blindly to Dean. But he kept it all in. He laid his angel blade on the side of the stretcher and gently took the drip out of Harrison’s arm. He stirred just a little.

Jack sighed, and placed two fingers upon Harrison’s head, as he’d seen his father do so many times. On instinct, a rush of grace flowed through him and into the young man. Jack’s eyes glowed a bright gold and a familiar warmth filled his body. The glow filled Harrison as well, going through his form and pouring color back into it. Jack gasped, frozen in place and overcome by the burst of energy. Harrison’s eyes shot open, bright and furious, and he took a huge gasp of air. Jack felt transfixed by his gaze and didn’t even notice when the angel blade plunged into his chest.

Jack didn’t flinch, he didn’t even feel it. He couldn’t remember being this impervious to pain in years. It felt incredible, in fact. He was invincible and full of a weird joy, brighter than he’d felt in years. Harrison scowled and looked confused as Jack didn’t burst into a bright white light. Jack, for his part, smiled and removed the bloody blade, the wound healing on its way out.

“Who are you?” Harrison asked, voice slightly raspy from a lack of use.

“I’m Jack. Claire’s little brother,” Jack told him.

“I mean _what_ are you?” Harrison said, shocked. “Those blades- they can kill anything.”

“I’m a nephilim,” Jack replied. “The only one in existence.”

Harrison’s mouth gaped open.

Claire had come back down and explained things, as shocked as Harrison was at his recovery. She kept eyeing Jack with an awe to match Harrison’s wariness. For Jack’s part, he suddenly felt quite shy, and wished for the end of the theatrics.

They all went to a bar that night to celebrate, Claire taking over the pool table, leaving Jack and Harrison to talk alone at the table. He kept making Jack laugh somewhere weird and fluttery in his stomach. Jack found himself a mix of sad and elated when they had to say goodbye at the end of the night, heading to Claire’s car as Harrison hopped on his bike back to the motel. Claire shot him an inspecting look when the motel door closed behind him.

“You look giddy,” she noted and Jack shrugged.

“It was a big win,” Jack said, looking away. “My grace, I feel it all coursing through. I think it’s back, Claire.”

“You think you can save him?” Claire asked, suddenly diverted from her earlier teasing. Jack nodded.

“I know it,” he said solemnly.

“You better tell Cas,” she told him.

“I will,” Jack agreed. “I’ll head back tomorrow, I think.”

“Are you nervous?” Claire gently asked. “You can be.”

“I don’t know,” Jack replied. “I don’t know what I feel.”

Jack kicked off his sneakers by the door and climbed onto the bed, sitting with his legs crossed. Claire sat on hers and smiled at him slyly.

“That the only reason you’re feeling giddy?” She pushed, and he felt himself turn sort of bashful.

“What do you mean?” He quickly shot at her. Her grin broadened.

“It sort of makes sense,” Claire began, “I mean, with the bike and the flannel and the leather jacket, you know, all I’ve gotta say is I’m not shocked.”

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” Jack told her stiffly.

“Yes you do,” she replied. “It’s probably why I never let you meet him. He’s pretty funny isn’t he?”

“I guess,” Jack remarked, not looking at her.

“You certainly thought he was _such_ a jokester last night. Really hysterical. I mean, that’s why you had to touch his arm every time he made a joke, right?” Claire drawled.

“Shut up,” Jack said quickly. “Just shut up.”

Claire snickered.

“He calls the motorcycle his old girl. I don’t know if you care,” Claire added.

“Shut up!” Jack practically shouted, ramming his head into the pillow. “Stop being such an asshole.”

“Freak,” Claire replied.

Jack shut the light off then, groaning in the darkness. He went to bed with a barely contained smile on his face.

He felt more sober in the morning, the buzz of it all having worn off. The one little reminder of it all was a paper coaster with a phone number scrawled on it that he saw slipped under the door. A warmth spread in his chest and he pocketed it before his sister could see it. Then the anxiety returned. He gave Claire a tight hug before preparing to fly to Kansas.

“Good luck,” she told him, fierce and loving. There was one long moment when neither wanted to let go, but then he regained his nerve and with a flap of wings he was gone.

Cas was in the library, shelving some book on healing magic when Jack appeared. He abruptly dropped the book and then smiled so brightly it could’ve burned Jack’s eyes. Instantly, he wrapped him up in his arms, and Jack’s face crushed into his shoulder.

“I missed you so much,” he whispered into his father and Cas stroked his hair.

“It’s alright now,” Cas murmured. “Everything’s alright.”

It wasn’t though, not yet. He knew that and suspected Cas knew, too. Jack slowly broke away and faced his father.

“I’m sorry that I’m a few days late,” Jack told him. Cas shrugged it off.

“What matters is you’re here now.”

“Dad,” Jack began, slow and unsure of how to word this. He didn’t know what it might set off in Cas. “My grace is back. All of it.”

Cas tensed up.

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Cas sat down in one of the library chairs, deflating slowly. Jack thought he saw a million emotions flash through his face. Jack remained standing a few paces away.

“I’m gonna go to Billie and Rowena and see what they can do about a plan,” Jack said carefully. “And then I’m gonna go find him, I have to.” Cas put his head in his hands. “Please don’t get angry.”

“I’m not angry, I’m just- what if you’re not ready?” Cas asked desperately.

“I know I’m ready,” Jack replied. And he did. He had been filled with a purpose and a steadiness since he touched Harrison’s forehead. He couldn’t explain it to his father. It seemed halfway divine and halfway incredibly human. Mostly, it was a childlike instinct. He missed Dean, he missed his dad.

“But what if-” Cas began. Jack went to him then, kneeling at his feet. Cas looked down at him in shock at the moment’s reversal. Then the shock gave way to something between sorrow and love.

“You’ve done everything for me,” Jack said. “Since before I was even born you’ve taken care of me. And I know that you’re scared. I’m scared too, dad, really I am. But we both know that I have to do this, I need to do this. I’m big enough and strong enough and I’m ready. I can’t just leave him there, neither can you, not really. We need him. And he needs us.”

Cas shut his eyes tightly. Jack grabbed his father’s hands in his own as if to ground him, forcing him to see him. He needed one more thing from him and then he could go.

“I know this is hard for you, but…” Jack struggled to find the right words. “But I can’t go without your blessing.”

Those words hung between them. Cas opened his eyes and searched his child’s face.

“Jack-” His voice was quiet and strangled. Jack held his hands tighter.

“That’s the only way I can be strong enough,” Jack told him. And while he hadn’t really planned this before coming here, hadn’t been sure of what he needed, it suddenly all clicked into place. He needed to take his father’s indomitable love and strength with him. He was sure it was the only thing that would be enough for him to do this, to save Dean, and not lose himself. “Please, bless me.”

Cas looked at him and Jack somehow knew he was seeing him at every age, seeing a little boy and an old man that he might someday be. Slowly, tenderly, Cas took one of his hands away from Jack’s and placed it to his forehead, palm spread against it as if he was taking his temperature. Jack felt a surge of grace through his body, filling him from his head to his toes. It was different from before when his grace had returned, it was overwhelming and wonderful and every embrace at once. When Cas pulled away he was gasping for breath and Jack immediately noticed that he looked different.

“There,” he said simply. “That’s the last of it. I think it’ll be enough.”

“Dad, your grace-” Jack asked, shocked. Cas smiled.

“Take it,” he told him. “I bless you.”

“Thank you,” Jack told him. Cas touched his face, just a brush.

“Do you know you’re better than I ever imagined?” Cas told him. Jack didn’t know, he couldn’t understand it at all. Cas kissed him on the forehead then, and Jack knew he was ready.

Rowena and Billie had helped but it was mostly all Jack who had gotten the box out of the sea and broken the warding. He was all aglow, feeling almost too powerful to stay on the ground. He stood in front of it and watched the man emerge from inside. When their eyes met he saw only Michael but he was not afraid.

“You’ve made a terrible mistake, boy,” Michael said, smirking and stepping forward. Jack didn’t flinch and instead moved to meet him, his mouth set and his purpose clear. “Do you think there’s even anything left of your father in there to save? Don’t you know I crushed him long ago?”

“I’m sorry that your father left you,” Jack told him, solemn and honest. “I bet you must miss him terribly. I’ve missed mine so much for all these years.”

“What?” Michael asked, caught somewhere between shock and a laugh. Then he shrugged, his eyes glowing silver, and he raised his fingers to snap them.

Jack was quicker. He stepped forward and placed his hands on either side of Michael’s head. It was as easy as breathing, love and purpose rushing through his body, keeping him steady and sure. Michael slipped out of Dean and into a silver cloud above their heads. Jack watched it glow gold and then burn above them, disappearing into angelic ashes. He was gone. Simple as that. Jack stared at the cloudy sky where it had once been and wanted to laugh in relief. Michael seemed so tiny, suddenly. Jack couldn’t even hate him.

Dean fell to the floor in front of him, gasping for air. Jack looked at him then, unable to move. He had dreamed of this moment for years and years and then planned all the specifics over these past few months. But he had no idea what to do now that he was finally there. All the courage and bravery had gone out of him. His mind was just racing with the worries of _what will I say to him? Will he even know me? Will he hate me? Was I too late?_

Dean’s eyes seemed to finally focus on Jack’s and he saw that mossy green for the first time in a decade. Dean was shaking all over and Jack realized he himself was as well.

“Jack…” Dean finally got out.

“Hi, dad,” Jack whispered. He had never called him that before but it was clearly the right thing to say because something seemed to soften in Dean, a smile forming at the corners of his mouth.

“How long has it been?” He said, his voice hoarse and distant.

“Ten years,” Jack admitted. Dean shook his head, bitterness in his eyes.

“I missed all that, you’re a man now aren’t you?” Dean asked and Jack nodded.

“I’m so sorry,” Jack told him. “I should have come years ago-”

“No, no,” Dean said, shaking his head. “Don’t you apologize. Come here, let me look at you.”

Jack knelt down in front of Dean who studied his face carefully, clearly too weak to even reach out a hand and touch him.

“You’re wonderful,” Dean told him. “Shit, you’re wonderful.” Dean laughed a little which turned into a gasp of pain and instinctively Jack put his fingers to his forehead to heal him.

When he touched him he saw it, all the damage down to his soul and his brain and his psyche. Michael had ripped him to shreds and all that was before him was ragged edges. He didn’t know how to fix this, it overwhelmed him and made tears well in his eyes. He had come so far and to fail then was so crushing a defeat the unfairness choked him.

It was then that he felt something slow and insistent crawling amidst his grace, crying out to him. He let it move from him into Dean, going through his hands and into his forehead. It seemed to speak to him in gentle tones as it moved out of him, telling him it knew what to do. Jack trusted it.

Dean shuddered as the grace flowed through him. Then he exhaled. Jack moved his hands away. Dean’s eyes had cleared up. When Jack looked at his soul, it was clean and whole and bright again. Dean looked confused.

“What was that?” He asked. Jack smiled.

“It was Cas,” Jack told him. “It was his blessing.”

“What?” Dean repeated, incredulous. Jack held out his hand.

“Let’s go home, he’s waiting for us,” Jack said simply. Dean took his hand and let him help him to his feet. Jack spread out his wings and they were gone.

When they got back to the bunker, Cas took Dean into his arms and simply wept into his jacket. Jack knew it wasn’t something for him to watch but he didn’t want to stop looking at them. Dean was stroking his hair and Cas was holding onto him so tightly Jack thought he would tear him to pieces or absorb them into one being. Jack couldn’t hear what Cas was saying but he could tell from the tone it was swinging from furious to loving to devastated to overwhelmingly happy. Dean was quiet, kissing his forehead and his cheeks over and over, as if that would prove to him that he was there and real.

“You don’t know how much I- I’ve dreamed of this,” Cas said, voice finally loud enough for Jack to make out. “If you ever leave my sight again, I’ll kill you Dean Winchester. Don’t part from me, not until the day we die. Do you hear me?”

“I hear you, Cas,” Dean replied and he held him a little longer, quietly this time. Eventually Cas seemed to have caught his breath and they both looked over at Jack. “You did good kid,” Dean said and Jack gave a small sheepish smile. “You did damn good.”

“Isn’t he wonderful?” Cas said, looking at Dean who smiled down at him.

“That’s just what I said,” Dean told him and spread an arm out. “Come here.”

Jack hesitated for a moment, not wanting to break up the reunion, but when Dean didn’t relent, he let himself run over and be small again and have what he always wanted. He pushed his face into his father’s chest and found himself immediately wrapped up in both of their arms. It was the safest place in the universe.

The others had shown back up to the bunker the next day: Claire, Sam and Rowena, and Bobby and Mary. There had been so much crying and reuniting and embracing that Jack had thought the joy of it all could fill for the rest of his life. It quieted down after that. In a week or so people were heading back on the road, and it was just him, Claire, Cas, and Dean still left at the bunker.

That changed a few days after that, when he and Claire decided to head on the road themselves. There was still work to be done, they decided, and they were as good to do it as anyone. Besides, they both sort of knew Cas and Dean needed some space to catch up with each other alone.

Things were in order for the first time in forever, Jack thought. With Cas giving him his remaining grace, he was human and the Empty deal was thus broken for good. And in healing Dean, he had taken his memories of the box. They wouldn’t be more than some occasional hazy nightmares, if all went right. And if anything went wrong, he had Cas to care for him. There wasn’t anyone who could do a better job. Michael was dead, Lucifer was dead, Billie was appeased, and Claire had an empty seat at the front of her car.

So they packed up their stuff and they promised to visit on weekends and they got ready to go. When they hugged goodbye it was long and lingering and Jack knew he had another memory to lock tightly in his heart. They stood back by the bunker door and watched as Claire and Jack pulled into the front seat of her car.

“It’s funny,” Jack said, gazing at Dean and Cas standing back by the door. Dean had an arm around Cas’s shoulder and Cas had snaked his own arm around Dean’s waist. They had been perpetually glued together since Dean had come back, as if signaling that nothing could tear one from the other ever again.

“What is?” Claire asked, fiddling with her car keys.

“I was just thinking, you’re 32, I look about 19. But Dean looks 40 and Cas looks 35,” Jack mused. “No one would believe they’re our parents.”

“Well, it’s not the strangest thing about us,” Claire told him. Jack grinned.

“No, far from it I guess,” he replied.

“Well, enough of this, we gotta get on the road. Harrison says he’ll make it to Duluth by nightfall and I don’t want him to beat us,” Claire said, turning on the engine.

“Harrison’s coming?” Jack asked, startled. Claire grinned and wriggled an eyebrow.

“That excite you?” She teased. He rolled his eyes and curled his legs up.

“Just drive, asshole,” he grumbled.

“Sure thing, freak,” she replied and pulled off down the road.

Jack craned his neck behind him to keep his eyes on the waving figures of their fathers as they drove away. Cas had turned his head into Dean’s neck, he noticed, and he wondered if he was crying and a part of him wanted to ask her to stop the car and let him go back.

“Do you think they’ll be okay?” He asked her, eyes still glued on the bunker behind them. Claire looked at them in the rear view mirror. She gave a little nod.

“They’ve got each other. They’re gonna be alright,” she said. “Don’t worry.”

Jack knew she was right, but he kept his eyes on them anyway as the car drove off into the sunrise. He didn’t turn back to his sister until they’d fully disappeared from view.

**Author's Note:**

> i feel like i keep writing the same fic over and over which is ultimately JUST the exact format of shakespearean late romances (couple are separated at the beginning usually bc of a perceived betrayal, the sea is somehow involved, a child is raised away from one or both parents, someone in some way comes back from the dead, bittersweet reunion in old age) which is bc i took a class on them a year ago and i'm not a very original person.  
> the blessing scene is derived from the traditional biblical narrative of jacob blessed by the angel/the old testament motif of how father's give their sons their birthright/the shabbos blessing (and partial credit to ari @swiftiedean on tumblr for the idea)  
> sorry to the sam girls for this one  
> also yeah the ben mentioned is meant to be ben braeden, make of that what you will


End file.
